


Still Working Things Out

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Gen, tfw you don't know enough about tags to be sure this is one you actually want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 10:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17806715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Basically what it says in the title. The Guardians get deaged to little kids and have to be watched by Pitch or a guardian that didn’t get deaged.(In case of a Guardian having to watch over, I’d prefer it to be North or Bunnymund.Shenanigans ensue, the kids get rowdy (being cooped up in one spot is never fun), the watched loses track of most of them at one point. Whatever fun stuff you can think of."I guess on a meta-level this is asking for funny crack, but the premise of de-aging doesn’t work that way to me.So, anyway, Guardians get de-aged, North doesn’t (and doesn’t know why), no one, actually, can figure it out–until we get to ‘see’ who, exactly, doesn’t end up as a child when you take them back to an earlier state.





	Still Working Things Out

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 3/7/2014.

When North walked into the globe room and found that the yetis  _hadn’t_  been metaphorical in saying that Jack was flying around as a six-year-old, he knew the day was going to be difficult.  
  
“Do you remember how you got like this?” North asked, after a suitable number of candy canes had coaxed Jack to within consistent shouting distance.  
  
“I woke up like this,” Jack said with a shrug. “Do you think it means I have more powers? I’m going to try to see if I do! I’m going to go visit Jamie! Won’t that be weird? He’s older than me now!”  
  
“Jack! Is not time to visit Jamie. Our appearances usually do not change so suddenly. And is not just appearance with you, is it? You feel like a child too, now, yes?”  
  
Jack tilted his head to the side. “Maybe?”  
  
“Hmm. Well, maybe it would be difficult for you to remember. We will visit other Guardians for advice.”  
  
“The Sleigh!” Jack exclaimed, zooming off.  
  
***  
  
Unfortunately, the half-feathered girl at the Tooth Palace didn’t have any advice to offer, and neither did the mini-fairies. “There’s all this stuff about _teeth_  going on in my head!” the child Tooth complained. “I don’t know what to do with it! And I have to tell it to the fairies or else I feel sick!” The mini fairies hovered around her in a nervous cloud, peeping at her encouragingly. She sat down in a huff and began to mutter names and addresses to them.  
  
North looked from her to Jack and back again. It didn’t seem right to leave Tooth here, but to teach her to relinquish her duties to the mini-fairies for a time seemed both difficult and dangerous—especially when Jack wasn’t making it any easier by chasing the little fairies, who were all still delighted with his teeth, around the palace. Actually, he  _was_  pretty preoccupied with that…   
  
“Tooth, Jack, I’ll be right back.”  
  
And he was, though unfortunately not with the Bunny he had hoped to find, but rather a young Pooka about the same size as Jack and Tooth. “I don’t like this, I’m not used to it,” he said as he and North walked through the snow globe portal.  
  
“So you do not remember—”  
  
“No! North, I remember but I’m too young to remember everything! I’m only a kid, I’ve only got a kid brain! And I don’t like it, I’m not used to it! Do you know how long it’s been since I was this age?” Bunny—who certainly hadn’t been called Bunny when last he was that age—shivered.  
  
“We will figure this out, I promise,” North said. He looked around at each of the small Guardians. This sort of thing would not happen by accident, he was sure. And it could not be Manny’s doing, because even so distant from the rest of them, he knew there were good reasons why the Guardians of Childhood were not children themselves. So. A new threat? But nothing had followed, and if it was an attack, why had he not been a victim as well? It was all very strange.   
  
Fortunately, North still had Sandy to find.  
  
“Bunny, do you think you will be okay here for now? Need to go find Sandy.”  
  
Bunny shrugged. “Maybe. But how—” He stopped speaking and went utterly still, as did everyone else in the Palace.  
  
An odd tingling sensation rushed over North’s scalp, and more disturbingly, across his brain as well. The air became heavy, the sunlight shifting to a deeper gold, and half of everything seemed poised on the edge of the moment just before laughter. The other half waited in the moment just before a scream, and North realized that when the sunlight had grown richer, the shadows had grown darker. He tried to reach for his swords, but his muscles would not obey.  
  
An apology echoed through his mind, followed almost immediately by an amused negation of that apology. The first apology returned with more force and a few words that did not all seem to be in the same language.  
  
 _Sorry. We are still working some things out._  
  
When North was able to look around again, the others had been returned to their proper forms.  
  
Unfortunately, it seemed extremely unlikely that this day, or many days after, was going to get any easier.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr: 
> 
> bowlingforgerbils said: Ah, I love it! Very clever. :)


End file.
